The not-so Great Game: political economy of changing US energy policy in the Caspian Sea

Abstract

There have been significant changes in US energy policy in the Caspian over the last two decades, which have recently tended towards disengagement. The dominant explanations in the literature prioritized a narrow view of geopolitical perspective, the Great Game, which emphasizes the rivalry between the United States and Russia over the control of the Caspian Sea region. However, this perspective has not been able to explain why US policymakers started to disengage from the Caspian Sea energy projects despite increasing Russian and Chinese activism after the late 2000s. In this article, I explain the US disengagement from Caspian energy projects by drawing from the principles of energy security and the dynamics of international political economy (IPE) of energy. I show that this disengagement is heavily shaped by concerns about energy security and the IPE of energy, rather than bilateral power politics between the US and Russia. Applying a four-dimensional IPE framework to the US policy in the Caspian Sea, I demonstrate that energy endowments, technological advancements, and profitability of operations and companies shape the energy security considerations of the US, leading to shifts in foreign policy.